Divoix DV110 earphones

Rating: 5/5 (excellent value)

Review:
 Good earbuds with exceptionally strong bass

I was sent these Voix earphones for review and I think they are very good - and at the current price of under thirteen quid they are excellent value.

The earphones are very neatly (and unusually) packaged in a small, stylish tin, which makes a good, portable carry case. They have a choice of three sizes of silicone tips so you can position them comfortably in your ears. They seem well made in shiny black plastic, with a flat ribbon cable which gives almost no friction noise and doesn't tangle. They also have a proper gold-plated plug and decent strain relief so I'd expect them to last well.

Functionally they work well, with a microphone and a basic control button for the phone on the lead for accept/reject calls and pause/play. They are comfortable once you have selected the correct silicone tip and stay in place well. They also give a pretty good sound seal, keeping the world's noise out well and not leaking excessively.

The sound is very good for earphones at this price, with exceptionally strong bass. The middles are rich, but I do find the treble a little flat and indistinct. This may not bother you if you're looking for a real bass kick because these deliver amazing bass for the size and price, but I found classical music in particular did suffer a bit. I have a Test Playlist which I use for audio products beginning with 15th Century choral music, ending up with The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen and London Grammar and going through most things in between; these performed very well in rock and the like, and the deep, rolling bass in London Grammar's Hey Now sounded great, so my reservations about the sound in classical music may not affect you.

In summary, these are very good earphones at this price, giving good sound with a strong, slightly dominant bass. If that's a sound profile which suits you, these will serve very well as an everyday set of earbuds and I can recommend them.

Mixcder ShareMe headphones

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Decent quality headphones with very strong bass

I was sent these ShareMe headphones for review and overall I am impressed. They are very well made, reasonably comfortable and have good sound with exceptionally good bass response.

The headphones are very nicely packaged and come with a standard mini-USB charging lead, a good jack-to-jack lead (with gold-plated plugs) for wired connection and a decent User Manual in comprehensible English. The headphones look very nice, I think, and fold up for easy transport and storage. They have both Bluetooth and wired connection, and I noticed no difference in sound quality between the two modes. You can use wired connection to connect to non-Bluetooth devices, of course, and also use it if the headphones are out of charge which may be a handy feature.

They are light and although they're not the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn, they're perfectly OK for pretty long periods. The controls are the usual you would expect: on/off and volume + and - buttons which also serve for pause/play, skip forward and back and standard phone controls, and there's a perfectly decent microphone. Bluetooth pairing is simple (standard pairing only - no NFC). I found both the battery life and range good.

The first thing to say about the sound quality is that the bass is exceptionally strong and very deep. Middles, too, sound very good but I do find the trebles a little muffled and they lack real sparkle.  I test all headphones and speakers (and I've tested a lot) using a playlist of test tracks which give all aspects of the sound a thorough trial. It starts with 16th Century choral music, it ends with London Grammar and it has most things in between - orchestral, choral, vocal and chamber music, classic rock, acoustic music and so on. For rock and the like these are great; the powerful bass really gives it a kick and the deep bass in London Grammar's Hey Now sounds really good. However, in classical and acoustic music the slightly muffled treble does show, so high strings, a soprano, baroque trumpets and so on don't come over all that well, and an acoustic guitar can sound as though it needs new strings.

This may not bother you, of course, and if you like a real bass boom in your music these will serve you extremely well. They are certainly very good headphones at this price.  They seem solid and durable and if you're looking for a set of Bluetooth and wired headphones with really strong bass, I can recommend these.

Goodmans GSR1889 Retro DAB Radio with Bluetooth

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A handy unit with pretty good sound

This is a good DAB/FM radio with both Bluetooth and jack socket connectivity, so you can play music from most sources through it. I like many things about it, but I do have some slight reservations.

The unit is around 32cm long, 16cm deep and 17cm high, and weighs in at about 3kg, which does make it a substantial, solid unit. It is in a mock 50s/early 60s style which I rather like but my wife doesn't (oh, the joys of matrimony!), and which I think is quite well done.

The unit has sleep and alarm functions and you can select dim/off functions for the display if you like, but it may be a bit big for a lot of people's bedsides. I'd say it was more of a bookshelf or kitchen unit and although you can unplug and move it if you need to, it's mains powered only and not a portable radio.

The DAB radio is very simple to set up and use, and it works very well. Basically, you turn it on, it tunes itself and you're away. It also has FM radio, which gives pretty good sound, too. You can select a variety of equalizer settings and create your own (rather basic) equalizer setting. They are fairly easy to move between and can be useful, although I do find it a fiddle having to find and select the Speech setting, for example, rather than just turning a tone control. Another bedside problem for me is that there are no Preset buttons; presets are accessed by pressing a button (not easy to find in the dark), scrolling to find your station by turning the knob and then pressing to select. In the middle of the night I need just to grope groggily for a simple button for the station I want, and excessive fiddling with the radio can also wake my wife who, at 3.30am, is apt to express some very firm views on the matter with considerable vigour.

You can toggle between four input modes: DAB radio, FM radio, Bluetooth and an AUX jack input. Bluetooth connection was a doddle and gave good sound and a decent range of 6m or so at least. I found the volume perfectly adequate for my needs, but I never play my music very loud. I tried it at top volume: it's distortion-free and I'd say it is OK for a small gathering but not enough for a party.

The sound itself is pretty good. The bass is very solid and it gives a pretty good thump when turned up on the right EQ setting. The middles are good, too, but I do find the treble a little flat. I've given it a thorough workout on a variety of classical and rock music and it's the same throughout - not bad sound with good bass but lacking a bit of sparkle in the top. For a unit of this size and price I think I'd expect a little better.

I think this will make a nice kitchen radio/Bluetooth speaker or a good bedside radio if you have the space, and I can recommend this overall as a good, flexible music unit with quite adequate sound for casual use.

Audio Dynamix Fusion V3 Bluetooth speaker

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A classy compact speaker

I think this is a little bit of class.  Audio Dynamix sent me a Fusion V3 for review, and I'm really impressed: for its size and price it is excellent.

This first thing to strike you is that it is beautifully presented.  The box is stylish, there's a ribbon to help you to remove the speaker, the leads and even the manual are nicely wrapped in boxes of their own, and so on.  It just looks really classy, as does the speaker itself, which is a lovely object.  It is nicely proportioned, has a very neat robust aluminium casing and a simple, stylish grille.  The controls on the top are on a circular, brushed steel panel which looks really good – the whole thing is just really well made and looks good.

In use, it all works very well. Bluetooth pairing is simple both conventionally and using NFC, and the signal is solid up to 10 metres at least. The AUX input allows you to connected to non-Bluetooth devices, and the sound is equally good whichever connection you use.

The sound quality itself is very good. The top and middles are very crisp and well-defined, and the bass is good and firm.  The overall sound is very nice (especially after the first few hours use, when it improves noticeably).  I have tried this with a lot of music, including my Test Playlist which I use on all audio products for a fair comparison, which begins with Tudor Choral music and ends up with London Grammar.  Everything comes over well.  Classical music sounds rich and full, with a string quartet sounding well balanced and orchestral music rich and crisply articulated.  Rock is good and punchy, acoustic music sounds bright and airy...and so on. The bass response especially is critical in a small unit like this, and I think it's very good especially when resting on a solid surface, where you can feel a gratifying bass vibration through it.

Audio Dynamix are developing a well-deserved reputation for really good quality speakers, and this is an example of why.  It's beautifully designed, it seems very durable, it works well and for such a compact unit it has excellent sound.  If you're looking for a compact speaker, I don't think you can do better for under forty quid; this is a classy unit and very warmly recommended.

Lepow Moostone 6000mAh power bank

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent, stylish power bank 

I was sent this power bank by the manufacturers for review and I think it is excellent. It is well made, is exceptionally stylish and works very well.

The Moonstone has a capacity of 6000mAh which is enough to charge most mobile phones 2 or 3 times or most tablets roughly once - although it depends on your individual device, of course. It's a really useful thing to have if you need to recharge on the move. What makes this one stand out in a crowded market, though is its style. It's a lovely-looking and feeling object with a sense of real class about it. It's shape is square with convex sides and faces, and it has a very nice felt carrying wallet. It is compact at around 7.5cm square and 2cm thick and is light enough to be easily carried in a handbag.

It is very simple to use. Just plug the micro-USB lead supplied (or any other micro-USB lead) into the USB port of a computer or wall charger and the micro-USB socket on the power bank. I found it takes just a few hours for a full charge, and leaving it overnight will certainly charge it fully. It has an elegant display of 4 small LEDs on the underside which you can activate to indicate charge level. Using the power bank to charge your device is just as simple. It has two output ports rated 2A and 1A which will take your device's own lead or the supplied micro-USB lead.

This seems like a very good-quality product. Leakage rate is very low, safety features are properly built-in and it has a good, robust feel. The instruction manual is very good, although it's so intuitive in use that you probably won't need it.

I think this unit's real selling point is its very elegant style. It will serve you well, I'm sure, and would genuinely make a very nice present for someone who can use a power bank - I was very pleased when I received and opened mine. Warmly recommended.

Breville One Cup VKJ142 water dispenser

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A very useful product

This is a very good product in many ways. It does exactly what it claims: you press the button and it dispenses what for me is almost exactly the right amount of boiling water into a mug or cup. It fills like a kettle and once full dispenses five cups. It is quick, efficient and extremely simple to use, and only boils the water needed for a single cup.

Two things I wasn't so keen on:
1. It is larger than I expected. I thought it would be a compact device as it only dispenses one cup at a time. In fact it is the size of a large kettle. This may not bother you at all, but you may like to know in advance.
2. Even though I followed instructions and ran it five times before using it to make tea, the first cups were undrinkable because they tasted very strongly of plastic. Even after another 25 runs-through the taint was still noticeable. It is now very faint and eventually will probably vanish completely, but again - you might like to be warned.

That said, this will be a very useful product if you are in a household where a lot of individual hot drinks get made, if you have an office or if you just like the convenience of pressing a button and having a cup of coffee made for you 30 seconds later. Recommended.

Liger BTS1000 Bluetooth speaker

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good compact speaker

Liger sent me this speaker for review and I think it is good. At the time of writing it costs under thirty quid and it has good build and sound quality for this price range.

The speaker is very compact and looks good with a very solid casing and tough grille. Control buttons are on the top and work well: volume up and down, skip forward and back, pause/play and a separate button for controlling hands-free calls. On the back are the on/off switch, input port for an AUX jack lead, and a micro-USB port for charging. Bluetooth pairing was very simple (conventional only – no NFC). Everything works very well and I find it very simple to use.

The sound is good for a speaker of this size and price. Trebles are very sharp and middles are nice but I find the bass a little weak. That's not surprising in a unit of this size, but do be aware that if you want a real bass kick, this may not be for you. I have tested this with a lot of music including my standard playlist of Test Tracks and it does pretty well on most things from Tudor Polyphony to modern high-production music. It's very well balanced with very good articulation: string quartets sound good, (but low orchestral strings don't come over very well), rock is OK, if a little thin in the bass, and acoustic music sounds very fresh. It’s certainly not hi-fi, but it's very good for such a compact speaker.

Liger make good quality stuff (their Blaze earphones are very good, for example) and this is another very nice product from them. If you want more bass in this price range then I would suggest the Audio Dynamix S-Wave, but that is a somewhat larger unit; if you want a really compact speaker in this price range this will do you very well.